Inside the Rise of 7,000 Starlink Satellites – and Their Inevitable Downfall
Elon Musk's internet satellites have been a game changer for people in rural areas, but scientists are alarmed that plans to launch thousands more will be perilous for our skies.
Joe Supan
Feb. 13, 2025 11:54 a.m. PT
... Starlink has kicked off a race to low-Earth orbit, or LEO — the sweet spot in the skies where satellite providers can beam down fast, low-latency internet to people like Hopson. When it launched in 2019, Starlink was joining around 2,000 satellites in the entire sky; an article published in Nature in 2020 determined that 100,000 satellites in the sky by 2030 is "not just feasible but quite likely."
Starlink's horde of satellites have contributed significantly to making space a perilously busy place. Scientists have been ringing alarm bells about the unintended consequences for the ozone layer, astronomical research and a sky cluttered with space junk — from decades of rocket launches and satellite deployments that have only increased in recent years — that poses a threat to internet providers like Starlink itself.
For as long as the internet's been around, there have been those who can access and afford a speedy internet connection and those who can't. This gap is referred to as the digital divide, with rural areas often being stuck with few (or just plain bad) options.
It's an ironic twist: The satellites that we're becoming so dependent on to help bridge this gap could be their own downfall. ...
Read LOTS more at: Inside the Rise of 7,000 Starlink Satellites – and Their Inevitable Downfall | CNET
